by Jonathan Taplin in Vanity Fair…..In an excerpt from his new book, The End of Reality, the author warns about the curses of AI and transhumanism, presenting the moral case against superintelligence.
Yep, it’s bleak, says expert who tested 1970s end-of-the-world prediction
by Gaya Herrington in The Guardian…A controversial MIT study from 1972 forecast the collapse of civilization – and Gaya Herrington is here to deliver the bad news
Trevor Hancock: A polycrisis is greater than the sum of its parts
by Trevor Hancock in Times Colonist…..Today’s crises, they wrote, “simultaneously span natural, political, economic and technological systems, because they’re driven by a multiplicity of underlying ‘systemic risks.’ ”
How to resist cultic thinking in the end times
by Richard Heinberg in Common Dreams……People who are aware of society’s blind spots are often attracted to would-be cult leaders, because the former need a new worldview to replace the flawed one they are reacting against, and the latter fill that need.
Global heating likely to hit world food supply before 1.5C, says UN expert
by Fiona Harvey in The Guardian….“Climate change is a pandemic that we need to fight quickly. See how fast the degradation of the climate is going – I think it’s going even faster than we predicted.”
Atlantic collapse: Q&A with scientists behind controversial study predicting a colder Europe
by Peter Ditlevsen in The Conversation…..But what we see now with more and more frequent extremes, heat waves and storms and floodings, is the possibility of actually hitting a nonlinearity, a tipping point. That’s a much more challenging phenomenon to model.
From debt to diversity: A journey of rewilding, carbon capture and hope
by Elizabeth Fitt in Mongabay….A study also shows that the rewilded farmland at Knepp absorbs more carbon dioxide than conventional farms, providing hope for climate change mitigation and soil restoration.
Trevor Hancock: A polycrisis is greater than the sum of its parts
by Trevor Hancock in the Times Colonist…The polycrisis, according to the UN and Cascade Institute, includes the climate crisis, war, extreme economic inequality, financial system instability, ideological extremism, pernicious social impacts of digitalization, cyber attacks, mounting social and political unrest, large-scale forced migrations and an escalating danger of nuclear war,
Instead of moving to escape climate chaos, build social trust where you are
by Bill McKibben in Common Dreams….And I think it’s on a lot of minds, especially right now, as it becomes clear that many parts of our Earth won’t be habitable going forward.
How to deal with a world of polycrisis?
by Steffan Heuer in Think:Act Magazine….While the term is not new, polycrisis has taken on a new meaning and new urgency as governments, think tanks and ordinary citizens try to get their heads around how to best respond and prepare for it.
More in this tag
Jul
06
2023
Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement
by Dr. Michael Lawrence at The Cascade Institute….. In this framework, a global crisis arises when one or more fast-moving trigger events combines with...
Nov
29
2024
Trees as infrastructure
from Dark Matter Laboratories…An open source model to support municipalities in transitioning toward resilient urban forest management practices
Nov
28
2024
An emerging third option: Reclaiming democracy from dark money & dark tech
by Otto Scharmer in Medium…What does that tell us about democracy? Democracy is under strain globally, with mass misinformation eroding citizens’ ability to...
Nov
27
2024
Heat-related mortality in Europe during 2023 and the role of adaptation in protecting health
by Eliso Gallo, et al. in Nature…The year of 2023 was the warmest on record globally and the second warmest in Europe. Here we applied epidemiological models to...
Nov
26
2024
A logic for the future: International relations in the age of turbulence
by Stephen Heintz in the Rockefellerl Brothers Fund…Many of the causes and consequences of present-day turmoil are transnational or even global in nature. These...
Nov
26
2024
A brittle network
by Steve Lohr in The New York Times…The biggest and most valuable companies also carry the most risk to the economy as a whole. They are linked to more users, so...
Nov
23
2024
He’ll try, but Trump can’t stop the clean energy revolution
by Matt Simon in Grist…The cost of renewables is plummeting, heat pumps are selling like crazy, and red states are raking in cash from the IRA.
Nov
22
2024
I’m finally into ‘prepping’ and ready for the apocalypse
by Eva Wiseman in The Guardian…Piles of loo paper, a years worth of tinned goods and snake-proof boots. No wonder prepping has become a lifestyle choice
Nov
21
2024
Extreme weather cost $2tn globally over past decade, report finds
by Ajit Niranjan in The Guardian…US suffered greatest economic losses, report commissioned by International Chamber of Commerce finds, followed by China and...
Nov
20
2024
The Commune Form: The Transformation of Everyday Life
A leading radical historian looks at the global resurgence of the commune and asks how they can become sites of liberationWhen the state recedes, the commune-form...
Nov
20
2024
Risks on the horizon: Insights for a resilient future
by the Joint Research Centre of European Commission in the EU Policy Lab…In a world where the only constant is change, policymakers are faced with an accelerating...